thoughthead

Despite the fact that I am a video game fanatic, and I spend countless hours not just playing games, but participating in online communities with other gamers, and reading various tidbits of info, I’ve been disenfranchised with Gaming Journalism for quite some time now. There is really no singular root issue that is deserving of a pointed finger but rather there are a number of issues that make up the problem as a whole.

Gaming Media vs Mainstream Media.
The first of these many problems is the the wide gap between the gaming press and the mainstream press. It would seem that regardless of how many millions of people are into gaming it is still treated as a lame niche market by those who aren’t gamers. Even those who do play games but don’t fall into the mass media’s stereotypical ideal of a “gamer” poise them selves on the “non-gamer” side of the fence because of what that image supposedly entails.

Watching the nightly news you’d get the idea that no one over the age of 15 plays video games and that all games contain hordes of hidden violent sexually charged content that game makers try to peddle to children in disguise; coupled with wide open social networking access that perverts can use to talk to your children without your knowledge. They’d also have you believe that since games are only for children games can never be a form of creative expression and that the only video game console on the planet is the one they’re reporting on at that moment. On top of that you’re lucky if they got more than three or four facts straight throughout the entire bit never mind basing their entire report on anything more than a random poll of pedestrians off the street and an obscure blog entry from rabid mouth-breathing fanboy.

This of course isn’t helped by the fact that the few “gaming journalists” that actually do report for the mass media were cherry picked by ignorant suits who did so based on what they thought the stereotype was (I’m looking at you G4). Mainstream Journalists can’t report on Video gaming topics because they’re so far removed from that world they might as well deliver the report in tongues; at least they can’t get anything wrong that way. They certainly aren’t doing themselves any favors as they alienate the massive percent of the population that are gamers and they aren’t really delivering worth while information to those that aren’t gamers either.

Gaming Media vs. Gamers
On the other end of the spectrum we have the true gaming journalists, the ones who live and breathe and write about Gaming. The problem here is that they live and breathe and write about gaming. Gaming is a hobby for most and when a hobby becomes a way of life your perspective becomes messed up. It’s pretty clear that most of those in gaming journalism just don’t understand the needs and wants of your average gamer. There are a few exceptions but It seems to me that Gaming journalists usually fall into one of two categories: Either they’re incredibly snobbish and loyal to certain companies/developers to the point where just about everything sucks because of ridiculous details that were missed by the developer, these people usually have an ax to grind. Or they are weak spined and just tell people what they want to hear: generic sequel 25 is the best shooter ever, that is until other generic sequel 37 comes out next week. I’s unclear if the motives behind these types are to simply jump on every bandwagon they can find to boost their popularity or if they’re pandering to the interests of the companies that pay their bills, either way it’s not all that beneficial to gamers.

As much as the mass media doesn’t understand gamers, neither do gaming journalists. If you live among apes for too long you’re going to forget what it’s like to occasionally visit them at the zoo. When was the last time these guys stepped into a gaming shop to buy their games? When was the last time they chatted it up with the employees of said gaming shop or observed the buying habits of its colorful patrons. How many people do they speak too regularly that just own a PS2 and play it maybe once a month. How much do they really understand gaming from the perspective of the 80% of gamers that don’t fall into the “hardcore” category?

Coming Together
Gaming journalists rarely put themselves in the shoes of their readers and as a result the hardcore who already have their own opinions usually don’t care, and Joe occasional gamer doesn’t understand half of what’s being talked about so he opts not to listen. Most mainstream journalists have this down pretty well and that’s something the Gaming Media could deal to learn. Mainstream journalists unfortunately never put themselves in the shoes of a gamer and as a result they’ve built a brick wall between themselves and those who play games, they could deal to explore that world a bit more and see things from that perspective for a change.

Reporting on games is very subjective, in the same sense that reporting on movies and books are also subjective. However unlike movies and books games are reported on in the mass media as a sensationalized filler piece. What needs to be done is the big networks like ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. need to add a weekly or bi-weekly gaming segment to their news programs, and maybe a show or two. We don’t need G4TV we need an Entertainment weekly for games. We don’t need the news anchor interviewing Jack Thompson as a gaming segment we need an Oprah’s book club or an Ebert and Roper. And there’s no reason companies like CNN and IGN can’t come together to make that a reality.

Sources
Before the members of the news organizations in the “real world” and those in the “gaming world” start signing Cumbia and dancing around the campfire I suspect there needs to be some semblance of respect and professionalism between them. As ridiculous as the “real” media can be at times the gaming press very rarely conducts itself professionally. The biggest problem is source material. If you watch a news broadcast on TV and they quote someone you either see a video clip or hear an audio clip of the quote. If they’re talking about something someone said that wasn’t recorded they usually tell you a when and where before delivering the quote.

You don’t have the luxury of knowing the source with the gaming press. You’ll hear that the VP of Sony said such and so-forth but you’re rarely provided with an idea of when that was said, why it was said, what context or even who he was saying it too. Even worse are the “interviews” I see a whole lot of “We sat down with X” posted on a gaming news site only to find that the “interview” is a twice edited email questionnaire originally conducted by someone not even affiliated with the site posting it as their own. Granted you’ll get the occasional Associated Press re-edit in the real media but they always tell you that what you’re reading was from the Associated Press.

I’m interested in what developers and corporate gaming big-wigs have to say, but I want to know the context in which the information was delivered and I want to know how the information was delivered and who it was delivered too. If there isn’t good data providing me with information about the source and context then as far as I’m concerned the organization promoting that information is irresponsible and the information they provide is worthless.

Persona
Another step towards credibility and providing source and context is to allow Journalists in the gaming realm to have and develop their own Personas. In the real media journalists build their reputation, and they become respected or ignored based on the quality of their work. While some might be generic stuffed shirts the good ones stand out and make a name for themselves.

I remember being younger and reading Game Player magazine where I got to know some of the editors personalities through their work. I got to a point where I had favorite editors that wrote in a style I enjoyed reading, and that usually convinced me to go out of my way to read an article they had done even if it wasn’t a subject I would normally give any mind. I had others who’s articles I would tend to avoid. This was a concept throughout gaming journalism as I remember. As time has gone on it seems that the vast majority of the gaming media is anonymous. It’s unclear if this is simply because they don’t feel the need to promote individual journalists in gaming as they do in the real media or if gaming journalism is such a revolving door that every other report you read is written by just another anonymous laborer at a keyboard.

There are exceptions to this of course like Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal and the guys over on 1up.com, but that’s probably because both Newsweek and Ziff Davis (who owns 1up.com) are real news organizations. Unfortunately it seems that most of the news today comes from all over the place, and that all over the place is horribly unprofessional and terribly unorganized.

Treating Games as Art and not Products
Perhaps the biggest problem with gaming journalism, that ties in it’s disconnect from both average gamers and non-gamers on the outside looking in, is the fact that games are still not treated as art, or even forms of entertainment but products. While yes it’s true that games are products, technically so are movies music and pretty pictures. The difference is that games are treated as cold mechanical, quantifiable products. When you read a movie review or a music review they’ll basically tell you about the movie enough so that you’d understand whether or not it’s something that you’d be interested in seeing, they might make a passing comment on the quality of the film making or the recording quality but in general they understand that as an art form it’s largely subjective so they provide the reading with enough info to pass their own judgments on the piece. This also falls in line with the Persona of those in the media as you tend to find reviewers who have tastes and interests similar to your own so you follow and trust their word, or find those who never agree with you so you avoid and disagree with their word.

In gaming, reviews are given a numerical score. Because of this, no matter what anyone says or does games are instantly pegged as a product who’s qualities can be quantified. If I’m rating a toaster and giving it a score based on how evenly my toast gets cooked, the speed in which it delivers the toast and how easy it is to clean up, those are all quantifiable qualities and they make sense because every toaster has the exact same task. In video games, exactly how is one supposed to appropriately score a re-release of Pac-Man vs Bioshock? Really neither should be getting a numerical grade. Does it really make a difference that Bioshock has better graphics and sound? That it makes full use of rumble and analog control? Do those things honestly make a game any better or are they just things we quantify simply because it makes the act of scoring easier?

How about we ditch game scoring all together and instead concentrate on on talking about the quality of the game making. Is the story telling interesting and fresh? Is it trite and cliche? Is it inconsequential because the game is entertaining on a different level? Are the graphics appropriate? Do they distract or add to the gameplay experience? Is it fun to play or are there short comings that make it frustrating? Are a lot of people playing it online or will I be all alone?

This kind of subjective non-quantified reviewing is what gaming journalism really needs. If you combine that with the promotion of individual gaming journalists so we can start to know these people personally then I think both gaming journalism and gaming culture on a whole will improve for the better. No one is going to respect this hobby as art until we respect it as art ourselves.

Once the gaming media has been brought up to a professional level perhaps it will be more acceptable to the mass media, allowing a greater understanding between gamers, non-gamers, the gaming media and the mass media, and then maybe we can all hold hands and dance around the campfire like a big happy family.